ACC ~ Romans 8 v7

THE MIND SET ON THE FLESH. GREGORY OF NYSSA: As long as the flesh lives … it is not possible for the pleasing and perfect will of God to be done expeditiously in the life of the believer. ON PERFECTION.

WHETHER FREE CHOICE IS IMPOSSIBLE. CHRYSOSTOM: Paul is not saying that it is impossible for a wicked person to become good but rather that it is impossible for one who continues in wickedness to be subject to God. For a person to change and become good and subject to God is easy. … If we give our souls up to the Spirit and persuade our flesh to recognize its proper position, we shall make our souls spiritual as well. But if we are lazy we shall make our souls carnal. For since it was not natural necessity which put the gift into us but freedom of choice, it now rests with us which way we shall choose to go. HOMILIES ON ROMANS 13.

WHY THE “WISDOM” OF THE FLESH IS HOSTILE TO GOD. AUGUSTINE: Paul explains why he said “hostile” so that no one should think that there is some nature derived from an opposing principle which God did not create and which fights against him. An enemy of God is one who does not submit to his law and who behaves this way because of the wisdom of the flesh. This means that he seeks worldly goods and is afraid of worldly evils. The normal definition of wisdom is to seek what is good and avoid what is evil. Therefore the apostle is right to describe the wisdom of the flesh as the longing for “goods” which do not remain with a man and when there is a fear for losing those things which one day will have to be left behind anyway. Wisdom of this kind cannot submit to the law of God. It must be destroyed so that the wisdom of the Spirit, which does not place its hope in worldly goods nor is afraid of worldly evils, may take its place. For the one nature of the soul has both the wisdom of the flesh when it follows lower things and the wisdom of the Spirit when it chooses higher things, just as the one nature of water freezes in the cold and melts in the heat. AUGUSTINE ON ROMANS 49.

PELAGIUS: The flesh is not in itself hostile to God, as the Manichaeans say, but the carnal mind is. For everything which is not subject is hostile, and anyone who wants to clear himself may sometimes go beyond the limit of the old law. Paul says that this carnal wisdom can never be subject to the law of God in order to call men back from the desires of the flesh. PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.

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